Howe Robinson was somewhat downbeat in its 2025 forecast for the dry bulk market, with growth slightly below last year’s figures.
At its dry bulk seminar in London on Thursday, the UK shipbroker projected a 2.5% net fleet growth for 2025, down from 3% last year.
It said its seaborne dry cargo trade growth forecast for 2025 is 1.5%, compared to 3.2% last year.
Howe Robinson managing partner Guy Hindley said: “Overall if we were just looking at fundamentals, it’s slightly not as positive perhaps as were talking about last year.”
In terms of fleet supply, Hindley alluded that 2025’s smaller growth forecast is owed to last year’s “very strong” inflow of vessels, totalling 525 across the dry cargo market.
So far, only 94 have been tallied between January and February.
But Hindley added: “There are a lot of ships to come.”
On the demand side, 2024 also saw lower growth than 5% in 2023, with high coal stocks in China possibly lowering the 1.5% rise in 2025, following last year’s record import surge.
However, with US President Donald Trump ushering in an era of global tariffs, the general feeling is of uncertainty as Howe Robinson speakers said that their forecasts had not yet taken the ever-changing measures into account.
Hindley said: “It’s very difficult to assess whether it’s actually going to be a disruptive factor for dry cargo, whether it can perhaps benefit us or whether this trade will be lost.”
While some attendees labelled the relentless tariff turmoil as “chaotic” and “a rapid upheaval”, Hindley pointed out that compared to 2018’s levy onslaught, the impact on China will perhaps be milder.
“I think China is much better prepared this time around than it was the last time and is less reliant on the US,” Hindley said outlining the country’s turn towards Brazil for its grains intake.
Hindley also drew attention to Trump, announcing that he will soon be imposing tariffs on “external” agricultural products and highlighted his recent tweet warning US farmers to start upping their production from 2 April.
“It will be very interesting to see what is actually going to come from Trump saying that he’s going to put a tariff on US grain exports so they keep more within the country. I’m not sure where they’re going to consume all of it!” Hindley added. (Copyright)
